Union Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs Anurag Thakur launched National programme KIRTI from Chandigarh on Tuesday in the presence of Member Parliament Kirron Kher, Advisor to Administrator of UT Chandigarh Rajeev Verma and other dignitaries. KIRTI aligns with the vision of the Prime Minister of India, emphasizing the importance of talent hunt in every corner of the country. Union Minister also announced to open two new National Centre of Excellence for Sports dedicated to women where only women sports persons will be trained. He said that the country already has 23 National Centre of Excellence.

Launching the Khelo India Rising Talent Identification Programme KIRTI, Mr Thakur said that now the sports persons are being provided best training facilities as per vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who always boost the morale of all the sports persons who represent the country in the various competitions. Mr Thakur said that on the request of sports and Youth Affairs Ministry, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had amended the rules to provide government jobs to the medal winners of Khelo India being organised at four levels. He said that earlier the jobs were provided to the winners of International level championships like Olympics.

Mr Thakur said that the primary objective of “KIRTI” is to identify and support sports talents at the grassroots level across various disciplines. He said that under this programme, the government will reach every nook and corner of every district of the country to identify talent. He said that the talent of the youth will be nurtured in the sports academies. Mr Thakur said that in New India people do not need to come to the government, instead the government goes to their doorsteps. He said that youth have to register themselves online on MY BHARAT mentioning his sports discipline and district etc, and the teams will be sent to the districts to identify them.

Mr Anurag Thakur said that to ensure transparency an Integrated Platform has been formed. After training in the national level institutes, the identified talent will get opportunities to participate in the Asian, Commonwealth and other games. The Union Minister said that 5 lakh Physical Education teachers will be trained online under e-Khel pathshala programme.

The KIRTI model will feature a pyramidal structure, identifying talented sportspersons from grassroots levels to the development of elite athletes for international excellence. Talent identification will be conducted through scientifically designed tests, ensuring accuracy and fairness in the selection process. He said, furthermore, “Bharat Benchmarks” will be established for performance measurement, providing a unified tool for performance assessment across various disciplines.